CHAPTER VI.
MADAME'S FOUR CHANCES.
Anne of Austria had begged the young queen to pay her a visit. For sometime past suffering most acutely, and losing both her youth and beautywith that rapidity which signalizes the decline of women for whom lifehas been a long contest, Anne of Austria had, in addition to herphysical sufferings, to experience the bitterness of being no longerheld in any esteem, except as a living remembrance of the past, amid theyouthful beauties, wits, and influences of her court. Her physician'sopinions, her mirror also, grieved her far less than the inexorablewarnings which the society of the courtiers afforded, who, like the ratsin a ship, abandon the hold in which the water is on the point ofpenetrating, owing to the ravages of decay. Anne of Austria did not feelsatisfied with the time her eldest son devoted to her. The king, a goodson, more from affectation than from affection, had at first been in thehabit of passing an hour in the morning and one in the evening with hismother; but, since he had himself undertaken the conduct of stateaffairs, the duration of the morning and evening's visit had beenreduced to half; and then, by degrees, the morning visit had beensuppressed altogether. They met at mass; the evening visit was replacedby a meeting, either at the king's assembly, or at Madame's, which thequeen attended obligingly enough, out of regard to her two sons. Theresult was that Madame had acquired an immense influence over the court,which made her apartments the true royal place of meeting. This, Anne ofAustria had perceived; feeling herself to be suffering, and condemned byher sufferings to frequent retirement, she was distressed at the ideathat the greater part of her future days and evenings would pass awaysolitary, useless, and in despondency. She recalled with terror theisolation in which Cardinal Richelieu had formerly left her, thosedreaded and insupportable evenings during which, however, she had heryouth and beauty, which are always accompanied by hope, to console her.She next formed the project of transporting the court to her ownapartments, and of attracting Madame, with her brilliant escort, to hergloomy and already sorrowful abode, where the widow of a king of France,and the mother of a king of France, was reduced to console, in heranticipated widowhood, the always weeping wife of a king of France.
Anne began to reflect. She had intrigued a good deal in her life. In thegood times past, when her youthful mind nursed projects which wereinvariably successful, she then had by her side to stimulate herambition and her love, a friend of her own sex, more eager, moreambitious, than herself--a friend who had loved her, a rare circumstanceat court, and whom some petty considerations had removed from herforever. But for many years past--except Madame de Motteville, andexcept La Molena, her Spanish nurse, a confidante in her character ofcountrywoman and woman too--who could boast of having given good adviceto the queen? Who, too, among all the youthful heads there, could recallthe past for her--that past in which alone she lived? Anne of Austriaremembered Madame de Chevreuse, in the first place exiled rather by herwish than the king's, and then dying in exile, the wife of a gentlemanof obscure birth and position. She asked herself what Madame deChevreuse would formerly have advised her in a similar circumstance, intheir mutual difficulties arising from their intrigues; and, afterserious reflection, it seemed as if the clever, subtle mind of herfriend, full of experience and sound judgment, answered her in herironical tone of voice: "All these insignificant young people are poorand greedy of gain. They require gold and incomes to keep alive theirmeans of amusement; it is by interest you must gain them over." And Anneof Austria adopted this plan. Her purse was well filled, and she had ather disposal a considerable sum of money, which had been amassed byMazarin for her, and lodged in a place of safety. She possessed the mostmagnificent jewels in France, and especially pearls of a size so large,that they made the king sigh every time he saw them, because the pearlsof his crown were like millet-seed compared to them. Anne of Austria hadneither beauty nor charms any longer at her disposal. She gave out,therefore, that her wealth was great, and as an inducement for others tovisit her apartments, she let it be known that there were good goldcrowns to be won at play, or that handsome presents were likely to bemade on days when all went well with her: or windfalls, in the shape ofannuities which she had wrung from the king by entreaty, and which shedetermined to do to maintain her credit. And, in the first place, shetried these means upon Madame, because, to gain her consent was of moreimportance than anything else. Madame, notwithstanding the boldconfidence with which her wit and beauty inspired her, blindly ran headforemost into the net which had been stretched out to catch her.Enriched by degrees by these presents and transfers of property, shetook a fancy to these inheritances by anticipation. Anne of Austriaadopted the same means toward Monsieur, and even toward the kinghimself. She instituted lotteries in her apartments. The day on whichthe present chapter opens, invitations had been issued for a late supperin the queen-mother's apartments, as she intended that two beautifuldiamond bracelets of exquisite workmanship should be put into lottery.The medallions were antique cameos of the greatest value; the diamonds,in point of intrinsic value, did not represent a very considerableamount, but the originality and rarity of the workmanship were such,that every one at court not only wished to possess the bracelets, buteven to see the queen herself wear them; for, on the days she worethem, it was considered as a favor to be admitted to admire them inkissing her hands. The courtiers had, even with regard to this subject,adopted various expressions of gallantry to establish the aphorism, thatthe bracelets would have been priceless in value if they had not beenunfortunate enough to be placed in contact with arms as beautiful as thequeen's. This compliment had been honored by a translation into all thelanguages of Europe, and numerous were the verses in Latin and Frenchwhich had been circulated on the subject. The day that Anne of Austriahad selected for the lottery was a decisive moment; the king had notbeen near his mother for a couple of days; Madame, after the great sceneof the Dryads and Naiads, was sulking by herself. The king's fit ofsulkiness was over, but his mind was absorbingly occupied by acircumstance which raised him above the stormy disputes and the giddypleasures of the court.
Anne of Austria effected a diversion by the announcement of the famouslottery to take place in her apartments on the following evening. Withthis object in view, she saw the young queen, whom, as we have alreadyseen, she had invited to pay her a visit in the morning. "I have goodnews to tell you," she said to her, "the king has been saying the mosttender things about you. He is young, you know, and easily drawn away;but so long as you keep near me, he will not venture to keep away fromyou, to whom, besides, he is most warmly and affectionately attached. Iintend to have a lottery this evening, and shall expect to see you."
"I have heard," said the young queen, with a sort of timid reproach,"that your majesty intends to put in lottery those beautiful braceletswhose rarity is so great that we ought not to allow them to pass out ofthe custody of the crown, even were there no other reason than that theyhad once belonged to you."
"My daughter," said Anne of Austria, who read the young queen'sthoughts, and wished to console her for not having received thebracelets as a present, "it is positively necessary that I should induceMadame to pass her time always in my apartments."
"Madame!" said the young-queen, blushing.
"Of course; would you not prefer to have a rival near you, whom youcould watch and rule over, than to know that the king is with her,always as ready to flirt with, as to be flirted with by her. The lotteryI have proposed is my means of attraction for that purpose: do you blameme?"
"Oh, no!" returned Maria-Theresa, clapping her hands with a childlikeexpression of delight.
"And you no longer regret, then, that I did not give you thesebracelets, as I had at first intended to do?"
"Oh, no, no!"
"Very well; make yourself look as beautiful as possible, that our suppermay be very brilliant; the gayer you seem, the more charming you appear,and you will eclipse all the ladies present as much by your brilliancyas by your rank."
Maria-Theresa left full of delight. An hour
afterward, Anne of Austriareceived a visit from Madame, whom she covered with caresses, saying,"Excellent news! the king is charmed with my lottery."
"But I," replied Madame, "am not quite so charmed; to see such beautifulbracelets on any one's arms but yours or mine, is what I cannotreconcile myself to do."
"Well, well," said Anne of Austria, concealing by a smile a violent pangwhich she had just experienced, "do not alarm yourself, young lady, anddo not look at things in the worst light immediately."
"Ah, madame, fortune is blind, and I am told there are two hundredtickets."
"Quite as many as that; but you cannot surely forget that there can onlybe one winner."
"No doubt. But who will that be? can you tell?" said Madame, in despair.
"You remind me that I had a dream last night; my dreams are alwaysgood--I sleep so little."
"What was your dream?--But are you suffering?"
"No," said the queen, stifling with wonderful command the torture of arenewed attack of shooting pains in her bosom; "I dreamed that the kingwon the bracelets."
"The king?"
"You are going to ask me, I think, what the king could possibly do withthe bracelets?"
"Yes."
"And you would not add, perhaps, that it would be very fortunate if theking were really to win, for he would be obliged to give the braceletsto some one else."
"To restore them to you, for instance."
"In which case I should immediately give them away; for you do notthink, I suppose," said the queen, laughing, "that I have put thesebracelets up to a lottery from necessity. My object was to give themwithout arousing any one's jealousy; but if fortune will not get me outof my difficulty--well, I will teach fortune a lesson--and I know verywell to whom I intend to offer the bracelets." These words wereaccompanied by so expressive a smile, that Madame could not resistpaying her by a grateful kiss.
"But," added Anne of Austria, "do you not know as well as I do, that ifthe king were to win the bracelets he would not restore them to me?"
"You mean he would give them to the queen?"
"No; and for the very same reason that he would not give them back againto me; since, if I had wished to make the queen a present of them, I hadno need of him for that purpose."
Madame cast a side-glance upon the bracelets, which, in their casket,were dazzlingly exposed to view upon a table close beside her.
"How beautiful they are," she said, sighing. "But stay," Madamecontinued, "we are quite forgetting that your majesty's dream is nothingbut a dream."
"I should be very much surprised," returned Anne of Austria, "if mydream were to deceive me; that has happened to me very seldom."
"We may look upon you as a prophetess, then."
"I have already said, that I dream but very rarely; but the coincidenceof my dream about this matter, with my own ideas, is extraordinary! itagrees so wonderfully with my own views and arrangements."
"What arrangements do you allude to?"
"That you will win the bracelets, for instance."
"In that case, it will not be the king."
"Oh!" said Anne of Austria, "there is not such a very great distancebetween his majesty's heart and your own; for, are not you his sister,for whom he has a great regard? There is not, I repeat, so very wide adistance, that my dream can be pronounced false on that account. Come,let us reckon up the chances in its favor."
"I will count them."
"In the first place, we will begin with the dream. If the king wins, heis sure to give you the bracelets."
"I admit that is one."
"If you win them, they are yours."
"Naturally! that may be admitted also."
"Lastly;--if Monsieur were to win them!"
"Oh!" said Madame, laughing heartily, "he would give them to theChevalier de Lorraine."
Anne of Austria laughed as heartily as her daughter-in-law; so much so,indeed, that her sufferings again returned, and made her turn suddenlypale in the very midst of her enjoyment.
"What is the matter?" inquired Madame, almost terrified.
"Nothing, nothing; a pain in my side. I have been laughing too much. Wewere at the fourth chance, I think."
"I cannot see a fourth."
"I beg your pardon; I am not excluded from the chance of winning, and ifI be the winner, you are sure of me."
"Oh! thank you, thank you!" exclaimed Madame.
"I hope you look upon yourself as one whose chances are good, and thatmy dream now begins to assume the solid form of reality."
"Yes, indeed; you give me both hope and confidence," said Madame, "andthe bracelets won in this manner, will be a hundred times more preciousto me."
"Well! then, good-by, until this evening." And the two princessesseparated. Anne of Austria, after her daughter-in-law had left her, saidto herself, as she examined the bracelets, "They are, indeed, precious;since, by their means, this evening, I shall have won over a heart to myside, and, at the same time, shall have guessed a secret."
Then, turning toward the deserted recess in her room, she said,addressing vacancy--"Is it not thus that you would have acted, my poorChevreuse? Yes, yes; I know it is."
And, like a perfume of days gone by, her youth, her imagination, and herhappiness, seemed to return to her with the echo of this invocation.